Third Year

Introduction. The dynamic between free-software and open-source is often misunderstood by social and political theorists. As a consequence it is also under-theorised within socio-political theory. In this paper, I show how philosophies of free/libre, open-source and commons regimes have engendered new forms of sociopolitical consumption and new political economies of meaning. My emphasis on the interplay between the local and the global/structure and agency, shows new ways of ‘thinking’ the cosmopolitan, sedimented in the interconnected networks of the technical age....

Appadurai’s theory of globalisation stands out from the myriad of theories in a number of ways. First and foremost his theory of globalisation emphasises identity and perspective over institutions and nation-states, the spatial and temporal over the economic and political; in this sense Appardurai’s theory of globalisation is post-modern. Secondly, his approach is post-structural: Appadurai is challenging other models of social theory that are based on models of structure. Appadurai’s theory of globalisation goes beyond the usual dualisms of global/local relations with an account of the effect of deterritorialisation and global cultural flows on the construction of identity by individuals, ‘communities’ and that of the nation-state....

“What matters in the world is money, machines and people, in that order. Our political task is to reverse the order.” Keith Hart1 The long established savings and loan institutions are criticised at every point, from the financial models that they operate down to their de-personalised, off-shore call-centres. My argument in this paper is that banking services are anti-social, hierarchical and intensely private. These traditional banking services are, I contend, inherently undemocratic, even anti-democratic at the extremes....

My reading of Hardt and Negri’s Empire1 has taken me on a personal political journey. The text has provoked a critical examination of my own politics, bringing about a new consciousness of subject and sovereignty, of agency in a hyperglobalised world and of resistance to global capital. To a greater or lesser degree I do support Hardt and Negri’s contention that we now live in the age of Empire. To justify my position of qualified agreement with these authors I will explore the following four broad themes that emerge from the work: global informational networked capitalism, of subject, sovereignty and supra-nationality, of biopolitical (re)production and of political agency for the authors’ subject of liberation, the multitude....

There is no such thing as a ‘communitarian’ critique of liberalism for such ‘critiques’ are in reality only expressions of liberal dissatisfaction with the excesses of liberal individualism. After an eleven year absence, the manifestation of all that was 1990s Girl Power, the Spice Girls, reformed recently for a world tour. Once again the emancipatory message of ‘girl power’ and the undefinable yet absolutely essential ‘zig-a-zig-ah’ was heard blasting out of stadiums....